I wonder why the caribou was never truly domesticated on your side of the Earth, while most of our norther indigenous peoples here keep them.
They're useful and gentle animals. A lot of people up north still keep them. I know a few herders.




Local social media groups in northern West Siberia are full of posts about lost and found reindeer))

How timely, Tatiana. I'm presently working on a portrait of a very nice bull that JR photographed , in Alaska.

In studying photos of reindeer, they seem a bit different to me than the tundra and mountain caribou. Their ears are more stubby , like a Shetland pony. Their legs look shorter and a bit thicker in bone, and the hooves look very rounded . Just as in your photo. Not as long and pointed as caribou. Their heads, and facial expressions look more like ponies than caribou, shorter, even baby faced eyes . The structure of the bridge of the skull down to the muzzle looks a bit different .

I suspect I'm seeing those differences due to separate specifics in genetics , from being kept domestically. The same as , for example, red fox farmed for colour variation and size ? Or dog and horse breeds controlled through generations by domestic breeding ?

This caribou of JR's is a grand bull and I am inspired as I work on it. It is my first serious image of caribou. Complete with a mountain range in the backdrop that can be recognized.

Would I be right in what I'm noticing, or am I seeing things?

The wild woodland caribou we have here are far from gentle.
I released one accidentally caught in a wolfsnare (snagged by one antler) and that was exciting to say the least,lol
I suppose he didnt like being restrained.
All the ones here are a nervous and skittish animal.
However the woodland caribou are different than the mountain barren ground and peary caribou.
They live in smallish family groups compared to the large herds of the other caribou.

I have had that same situation Boco. Talk about "western" !!

I couldn't even get close to that critter. it was like a whirling dervish !!

Eventually i solved the problem with my rifle.... I waited until he calmed down a bit and stood still and then I shot the one antler in two just below where the snare was attached.

Ms Sharon:

Be sure you are comparing pix of winter reindeer to winter caribou. Their eyes change color seasonally so if you compare one winter critter to a summer critter they may indeed appear different in facial structure or expression........but you are right.....domesticated critters seem to be shorter and stockier than the wild version of the same species

Great story White. We had sows that developed this puss filled swelling under their chin. I lanced one with a syringe, that’s how I know, stunk bad. I come home one day and they looked fine. Ask my Dad and he informs he shot/lanced them all with a 22. I was astounded to say the least. What caliber you recommend for caribou antler vet work?

LOL ))))))) In that instance I used a 7mm mag but I suspect a 22 would have worked............it would vary with the thickness of the particular antler

Bruce, I believe I saw an old 1920's photo of Caribou standing on the ice of Moosehead lake. Was I mistaken on the date? I believe the one you show was from, what, 1909?

Boco and White...... In my 30+ years as a full-time taxidermist I noticed an oddity of Caribou that I never heard anyone mention before. The Caribou I mounted from Alaska and Quebec that were taken in August/September had long beautiful eyelashes......those winter season ("drive-up hunt") Quebec Caribou I did had NO eyelashes whatsoever. I am assuming this is a winter adaptation to keep their eyes from forming snow/ice buildup as they use their heads as a snowshovel clearing away snow while feeding???

We had Woodland Caribou here in Michigan as late as 1919 or so (on Isle Royale), and, depending on sources, as late as the early 1920's in the eastern U.P. where they may have wandered across the St. Marys River from Ontario. The Lower Peninsula lost it's last Caribou around 1850, around 5 decades earlier than the last recorded L.P. Moose (a cow in Cheboygan County, 1899).

As far as I am aware they use their feet to move snow. I have never seen them use their heads for that.

I would suspect that the summer eyelashes are an adaptation to insects rather than frost/ice in the winter.
Just a guess.

I actually tried that with my 22mag,all it did was make a little hole in the base of the antler,and made the caribou upset more,lol.

Intresting about the eyelash thing JM,I never really paid attention to it.

Sharon, it's all about domestication.
The fight-or-flight instinct is the core force holding all vertebrate life together. Mess with it and things start falling apart. Domestication is selection for weakened fight-or-flight response, generation after generation. Agessive, timid, easily spooked, skittish, bitey, nervous animals get weeded out, the ones that fail to react to potential danger in the way that guaranteed the survival of their ancestors are picked. Muted defense responses are often caused by slow, weakened, abnormal function of many key elements of the nervous system and hormones that regulate its function. By choosing calmer animals, we choose the ones with weakened/damaged self-preservation systems and they're intertwined with EVERYTHING in thebody.
For instance, as the embryo develops, our wiring, the peripheral nervous system, grows out of the neural ridge (a strip of neural tissue along the spine of the embryo) towards the extremities. In domesticated animals, this process is hindered and slowed down. The stem cells that leave the neural ridge are "generic', they will decide what they're going to become on their way to their destination, in their case, it's either peripheral neurons or pigment cells. This is why LOTS of species of domesticated animals from different parts of the world have white tail tips, white paws, bellies and noses - their migrating stem cells are equally slow.
When selecting tamer animals, we inadvertently select animals with serious changes (in the wild, they'd be defects) in many systems of the body. Nervous, endocrine, musculoskeletal, ... Curved tails, short snouts (Arab horses), often causing defective or missing teeth, shorter feet, softer, thinner fur, weaker claws and hooves, piebaldness and color aberrations, precociousness combined with failure to completely mature (juvenile features both in the body and behavior), etc etc. People have been self-domesticating, too, especially in recent centuries. It's how we adapt, genetically, to the "unnatural" environment we've created, it helps us coexist without dying from stress and killing each other. So yes, domesticated Rangifer tarandus have "baby faces", softer fur, more colors, more curved necks, softer hooves, and many other domesticated traits. Plus there are different races and subspecies.



it's the same here, forest reindeer in taiga (severely decimated now) are bigger, live in small groups, and have smaller antlers than tundra reindeer. Wild herds sometimes mix with domestic herds and drive domestic reindeer away, so herders aren't particularly fond of them.



I released a particularly big roe deer from a snare last year. Huge antlers (for a roe deer, with their pronghorn-like antlers). He was the size of a smallish reindeer. He was jumping and thrashing like crazy. I caught the right moment, jumped him and chopped the snare off his antlers with my machete.




Also released an angry fat badger from a trap using a shopping bag))

Excellent information Tatiana.

I noticed it while doing detailed fleshing/shaving as I prep'd the capes to tan and mount.




I think your observation makes more sense, White.

You might be right as I think this picture said 1941

Thinking a little more about the eyelashes..........it would also make sense that they are absent in the winter as that possibly increases the amount of light on their eye balls...........the very reason that they change color in the winter.

Tatiana, thank you for your info. It resonated true for all I've learned through time, from biologists such as Jack, to my own studies of anatomy as a technical artist.

I have noticed how the herds of domesticated caribou run differently, hold their heads and necks a bit different, have short choppy gaits compared to the rhythmic, full swing flex from the upper shoulder and spine, graceful stride of the wild ones. I knew I saw what I call baby faced...in the shape of their heads and the size and shape of their eyes,not only colour, but the size and shape. Even the colour tones in body are different.

As you know, people have pushed outside the domestic box, working with undomesticated, volatile species such as African elephants, African Bees, zebras, Onager, even Przewalski's horse. Learning valuable life lessons in the process.

Someday I want to do an in depth study of the war horses of the Huns, Mongols of the Mongolian steppes into the Himalayas and northern Asia. Ones I've seen look no different than the wild ancestors, at first glance, from the "domesticated" tundra herds. Maybe the Mongols didn't tweak the breeding to more refined characteristics. I want to look into this in more depth.

As to winter comparison of reindeer and caribou, I've been studying them both in every season. Reindeer also, because I want to know them at a glance and not be easily confused when I see either species.

JR's bull was in early fall attire, still mostly tones of umber, the white hair not appearing along the lower barrel behind the shoulders, or the cape a full flowing white with longer fringe. He was just starting to whiten up in the neck, but didn't have that full stud neck or heavier muscled front end. I found the light bands of bright colours fascinating that bulls get in rut. So to understand that colour change in the body, I compared summer to winter and the morphing stages of bull's colours and body shape. JR's was beginning to change. His antlers were still in velvet, which I came to prefer seeing them that way, surprisingly. They look much heavier and thicker at that stage.

I wanted to study their heads closely, summer coat is thinner and shows skull anatomy much better. It was easy to note the subtleties of bone and muscle shapes. I like their slight Roman noses. And the loose wrinkles just behind the nostrils for extra air intake.

Now, I just need to hear, close up, the click sounds they make as they travel...

I did see eye colour too in those seasonal studies.Thanks Ken, for the input. I found that interesting, JR's bull has darker. I take artistic license to a degree but have to stick to the overall integrity of the individual as well.

I have also learned to be careful in art with eye colour of any animal or human in winter snow and lighting. Many times the reflection of snow onto eyes makes them appear quite lighter, blue or amber, when they are not. The darkest eyes reflect as blue or amber depending on winter lighting, I've had to learn that throughout time, I try to be careful about that when doing commissioned portraits.

I appreciate the educating responses from everyone. It is at times like this, I add to my library of experience in art and different animals. Every one of them gives me a massive amount of anatomical, behavioral and geographical learning, though I feel at times I just scratch the surface.

All wrapped up and released as a river, in art. Traveling new trails is as good for the artist as it is for the client.

I am almost finished transferring the outline of the caribou and mountains onto the good paper.

Some projects I have to experiment a bit to get the correct colours, but others are immediately evident at first sight for me. This bull was the latter. Creating the outline is the hard part. Soon the fun part begins. Just like a colouring book for a kid.

Break time now.

Thank you all again.Its not only art, but life education about the amazing animals on the planet.

Great post! Very informative. Although I'm getting a little worried about you guy's falling in love with the long eyelashes??? Must spend too much time alone snowed in! LOL

I shot five woodlands in Newfoundland, before the big license purge of 2008. Prior to that season, tags were plentiful, and cheap. Then word came down from Fish and Game that tag numbers were going from 17,000 to a 1000. I think now there’s about 700 licenses available annually. Being that Newfoundland is the only place that you can kill a woodland, the tags go for crazy money. Outfitters I’m familiar with are selling caribou hunts in the $17,000 to $25,000 range. The demand is driven by SCI guys, looking to kill the Big 28 in North America.

Rudolph and Santa when they were younger.

Maybe Yukon Cornelius?

Yes great thread. 7mm dehorner, reckon she works for a castrater in a pinch. You could easily talk my dad into it.

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